Bringing back the archive: Kalahari San explore the Marshall archive

The Marshall family expeditions and the Ju|’hoansi

Between 1950 and 1961 the Marshall family, from the USA, undertook eight expeditions to Southwest Africa (current day Namibia), to locate and document ‘Bushmen’.

The Marshalls began their expeditions with no anthropological training, but over the course of their visits they developed impressive skills.

After their expeditions, most of the Marshall’s research material was deposited at Harvard University’s Peabody Museum and at Documentary Educational Resources (DER), a non-profit initiative set up by John Marshall to support ethnographic films.

!Khwa ttu San Heritage Centre is working with Peabody Museum and Documentary Educational Resources (DER) to make this archive available and meaningful to San communities, and particularly to the Ju|’hoansi.

Visit the !Khwa ttu Heritage centre to see, and learn more about the Marshall archive.